Should New Orleans Rebuilt
 

My question is this should New Orleans rebuild the way it was ? My feeling is that there shouldn't be any rebuilding until the levies are completely redesigned. The need to be higher and stronger or this will just happen again. It has been widely know for as long as I can rememeber that this was just a time bomb waiting for the next major hurricane to strike. My wife has family in covington and they mentioned it came up everytime we were down there. These levies need to be able to hold the water back even in the event of a strong cat 5 hurricane.

yes, it should.

My brother-in-law is a retired Army CoEngineers guy from Baton Rouge. He told my wife that New Orleans is in bigger trouble than he has heard from news because all the water being dumped into Lake P is contaminated and that the lake will be 'dead' and unusable (of course, this may be a big story already but with my schedule the past few weeks I have not seen much coverage at all).

Anyone who knows more info on this topic, I would be interested to see what has been said/link, etc....

I love saying the title of this. Facinating.

It's probably so, but then Pontchartrain was never very alive before (it's a pretty shallow sea, really). The big biodiversity thing is the marshlands of the delta since much of Louisiana is essentially an estuary (something obviously not well understood when New Orleans was founded over 300 years ago).

As for rebuilding New Orleans, there's been a poll put out (I think today) that actually has a majority of Americans tilting against rebuilding anything that was below sea level previously. Obviously, the "soup bowl" diagrams had measurable impact. They may not be thinking about the fact that even at sea level, both the river and lake are still higher, but that's semantics. Either way, it does seem to indicate that New Orleans, if it comes back, will be significantly smaller than it was and that displaced people will likely resettle either where they are now or somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

I have wondered that since the city and so many of the nearby areas have ceased to exist as functioning entities of government for now whether perhaps some sort of major reorganization of governments in the region should be considered. Perhaps some sort of "Orleans Consolidated Parish" that consists of a majority of the cities and parishes in and around New Orleans could be created. In effect, it would allow New Orleanians to remain "in the city" without actually returning to the "soup bowl" if you will. Knowing how c-f'ed Louisiana's political structure is, I highly doubt it could be done. Even so, a tragedy like this could yield new ways of thinking about urban development and governmental structures since the slate has in some respects been wiped clean.

It should be rebuilt. It should be rebuilt with the knowledge gained from this disaster. Rebuilt smarter. There is a huge middle ground between abandoning the City and rebuilding it just how it was. That is the middle ground on which people should be concentrating.